A decision support system to evaluate the business impacts of machine-to-machine system

Abstract

Purpose – The tightening competition and performance pressure in companies often leave no time or space for the assessment of business impacts of different investments and projects. In addition, in many cases the assessment may be challenging and there is no experience available to undertake it. Despite that companies often commit to different projects and investments without careful planning and vision of the costs it may cause. The purpose of this paper is to create a decision support system in order to facilitate and increase the assessment of business impacts of different investments concerning to machine-to-machine (M2M) systems. Design/methodology/approach – The created decision support system is composed of cost-benefit analysis including several investment decision methods. In order to deepen the understanding on it, the system was applied to two cases from the M2M business. Findings – During the study it was found that different financial metrics might give contradictory results when deciding whether to undertake an investment. In addition, a significant finding was how much some variables may have significance to the eligibility of an investment than others. The study also gave understanding how long payback time can be and how risky the investments might be in different M2M applications. Originality/value – The study describes the created decision support system and it is applied to two different M2M applications. The system provides a comprehensive combination of different financial metrics, which will help any manager make decisions whether an investment is eligible or not.